■ APPLICATION OF THE CONVENTION ON THE PREVENTION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE IN THE GAZA STRIP (ORDER OF 26 JANUARY 2024) (.pdf) + APPLICATION INSTITUTING PROCEEDINGS (.pdf)
■ THE EXPRESSION OF HATRED FOR GENTILES (Richard Edmondson/Nahida Izzat) (10/04/14)

Israeli occupation forces continue to bombard civilian houses across the Gaza Strip. | Israeli occupation forces bombarded a house sheltering displaced people in northern Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, early Tuesday morning, resulting in the martyrdom of 15 Palestinians, including four children, and injuring dozens. ● A Palestinian was also martyred and others were injured when Israeli occupation forces targeted a group of residents in the Saudi neighborhood west of Rafah. Ambulance crews were unable to transport several injuries, most of which were serious, due to the relentless Israeli strikes. ● In northern Rafah, several Palestinians were martyred after Israeli occupation forces bombarded a house near the al-Nojoum Stadium. ● In a related context, Al Mayadeen's correspondent in Gaza reported that the Israeli occupation forces bombed a house in the al-Maghazi refugee camp, adding that Israeli warplanes targeted the city of Deir al-Balah in the center of the Strip.

■ Feeding the Monster: US Secretly Sending more Bombs to ‘Israel’ (Alahed News)
■ Day 176: Israeli killings ongoing, toll on the rise, nearing 73,000 (Al Mayadeen)

A senior Biden administration official acknowledged the talks but declined to address specifics, saying instead, “we are working with partners on various scenarios for interim governance and security structures in Gaza. | The Pentagon is in initial discussions about the deployment of a peacekeeping force in Gaza where Israel's ongoing war has wrought mass destruction, death and displacement, and shows no signs of ending anytime soon. The Defence Department's planning does not currently include plans for any US troops to be deployed to Gaza. Instead, it is looking at the prospects for a multinational or Palestinian peacekeeping mission, the Politico news website reported on Thursday, citing four anonymous officials, including two from the Pentagon.

The Netherlands has unveiled its intentions to dispatch a Patriot air defense unit to Lithuania, a fellow NATO member, as part of an upcoming joint air defense exercise slated for the summer. | The Netherlands has announced plans to send a Patriot air defense unit to Lithuania, a NATO ally, as part of a joint air defense exercise scheduled for the summer, as per a recent announcement from the Dutch Defense Ministry. ● In a press release, the Dutch military said that the exercise, spanning several weeks, aims to bolster air defenses along the eastern flank. The primary objective is to assess NATO troops' capacity to rapidly transport and deploy air defense systems within a designated deployment area, as per the press release. Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said that the decision to deploy a US-made system near the Russian border serves to enhance NATO air defense readiness.

■ Netherlands to field Patriot missiles close to Russian border (RT.com)

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo directs a verbal attack against Russian and Belarusian athletes taking part in the Paris 2024 Olympics. | Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo said on Saturday that Russian and Belarusian athletes "were not welcome" at the Olympics being staged in the French capital this year. 💬 "I want to tell Russian and Belarusian athletes that they are not welcome in Paris and to tell Ukrainian athletes and all the Ukrainian people that we support them very strongly," Hidalgo said in a video posted by Ukrainian YouTube channel, United News. Hidalgo made her comments on a trip to Kyiv, where she visited a training center for Ukrainian athletes. Russian athletes can compete in the Paris Olympics, which run from July 26 until August 11, but only as neutrals. Russia and Belarus have been banned from taking part in the opening ceremony, which will be staged on the River Seine in the heart of the city. The IOC suspended Russia from the 2024 Games last year but gave the green light for its athletes to compete as neutrals as long as they did not actively support the war in Ukraine. In response, Moscow argued that the International Olympic Committee's restrictions on Russian athletes amounted to "neo-Nazism".

■ Russian athletes ‘not welcome’ at Olympics – Paris mayor (RT.com)

Interview with Glenn Diesen | Glenn Diesen is Professor at the University of South-East Norway. His research interests include Russian foreign policy and the geoeconomics of European and Eurasian integration. He is the author of the new book The Ukraine War & the Eurasian World Order. | Felix Abt: A great European religious war and the first pan-European conflict over superpower status came to an end in 1648. After 30 years of devastating wars and chaos, especially on German soil, with millions of deaths and shattered economies, the Peace of Westphalia brought a new, rules-based order to Europe, as the Western political class would call it today. This included the inviolability of borders and non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign and equal states; it is regarded as a milestone in the development toward tolerance and secularization. How did this affect the new powers that emerged afterward and their quest for hegemony?

A report by Russian investigators has confirmed the discovery of data on the receipt of money and cryptocurrency from Ukraine by the perpetrators of the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall. Furthermore, a cryptocurrency account supposedly used by the organizer and perpetrators of the crime has been discovered. | It is of paramount importance that data in the technical devices seized from the suspects in the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack has confirmed their connection with the Ukrainian side, Kirill Kabanov, chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Committee, told Sputnik. ● Initial data received from those detained in the case related to the terrorist attack indicated Ukraine pulled the strings. However, the fresh report by the Russian Investigative Committee points to the Ukrainian special services, and “we must understand that they are directly connected with the CIA and MI6 and MI5,” Kabanov said.

■ Cryptocurrency Account Linked to Crocus Terrorist Attack Supposedly Discovered (Sputnik News)
■ Terror mastermind told attack suspects to flee to Kiev – investigators (RT.com)
■ How Ukraine Morphed Into ISIS Terrorist Safe Haven (Ekaterina Blinova)

White House authorises transfer of $2.5bn of warplanes and weapons to Israel, The Washington Post reports. | The United States has greenlighted the transfer of billions of dollars worth of bombs and fighter jets to Israel, The Washington Post reported, even as it publicly expresses concerns about the long-threatened Israeli invasion of Gaza’s Rafah and the rising civilian casualties in the enclave. ● The new arms package includes more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, according to Pentagon and Department of State officials, the Washington Post reported on Friday.

■ Feeding the Monster: US Secretly Sending more Bombs to ‘Israel’ (Alahed News)
■ Day 176: Israeli killings ongoing, toll on the rise, nearing 73,000 (Al Mayadeen)

The Israeli military has executed 13 Gazan children in and near Al-Shifa Hospital in the war-torn Gaza Strip in a single week, a report says. | In a shocking report, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor revealed that 13 children were killed through direct shooting by Israeli soldiers in blatant violation of international law in Al-Shifa Medical Complex and its Gaza City environs earlier this month. ● “For over a week now, the Israeli army has been conducting systematic and horrifying military operations inside and around Al-Shifa Medical Complex. These crimes include extrajudicial executions and deliberate killings of Palestinian civilians,” it said. ● The Geneva-based organization added that its field team had received identical testimonies about the killings and executions of Palestinian children, who were between the ages of four and 16, at the time of their demise. [...] The rights monitor called on the United Nations Special Rapporteur to take urgent action to probe and document the killings committed by Israeli forces in and near Al-Shifa Medical Complex, urging the official to push for effective measures to hold the perpetrators and those who gave the orders accountable.

Hezbollah has carried out multiple operations against Israeli military positions in the northern part of the 1948-occupied territories in retaliation for Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon villages. | Hezbollah fighters attacked Israel's Jal al-Alam military base and a gathering of troops nearby on Friday with surface-to-surface Falaq (Dusk) missiles, Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen television said, citing a brief Hezbollah statement. ● The resistance fighters also struck the Metula settlement with various weapons and targeted an Israeli military vehicle station in a drone attack. The designated targets were precisely hit and destroyed in the aerial assault, the report said. ● Hezbollah further targeted the al-Samaqa site in the Kfarchouba Hills with a barrage of rockets. Moreover, they shelled an Israeli infantry unit in the Hadab Yaroun site with a salvo of artillery rounds, inflicting injuries among troops stationed there. ● A number of Israeli military vehicles were hit and damaged at the al-Malikiyah site as well.

Nation of Islam–Research Group | The Money Behind Genocide | And as the world is watching a genocide for the first time captured in real time, people may not be aware that they are not watching a religious conflict at all. Rather, they are witnessing an economically motivated depopulation movement to gain control of yet more oil and gas reserves. [...] But today’s covetous King Benjamin has another goal. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan pointed out in his monumental address on February 25th in Detroit that “Israel sees billions of dollars of oil wealth under Gaza and wants to build a canal larger than the Suez Canal and take advantage of that wealth.”

■ Russian Investigative Committee Has Proof of Crocus Terrorists' Connection With Kiev Nationalists (Sputnik News)
■ Nine People Detained in Tajikistan on Suspicion of Links to Moscow Terrorist Attack - Source (Sputnik News)

Countries, rights groups call for surge in food aid to Gaza and say Israel ‘must stop starving civilians and children’. | Countries have called for Israel to obey an International Court of Justice order to allow the unimpeded delivery of aid into Gaza, where famine has set in, as it continues to flout a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in the enclave. ● Judges at the UN’s top court, which is examining South Africa’s charge that Israel is committing genocide, unanimously delivered a legally binding ruling on Thursday that Israel should “take all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay … the unhindered provision … of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance” in Gaza.

■ Hamas says world court's order on additional measures to Israel requires enforcement mechanism (aNews)
■ 71 more Palestinians killed in Gaza, death toll climbs to 32,623 (Anadolu)
■ Israel’s war on Gaza live: Israel told to ‘stop starving children’ (Al Jazeera)

Israeli attacks in Syria have escalated amid its continued assault on Gaza | A series of Israeli air strikes on Syria’s northern province of Aleppo have killed at least 42 people, according to UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The attack hit a weapons depot near Aleppo airport, resulting in a series of large explosions and the reported death of six members of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah. The Syrian defence ministry said earlier on Friday that civilians and military personnel were killed in what have been described as the most violent Israeli strikes on Syria in three years. The air strikes targeted several areas in Aleppo’s countryside at about 1.45am local time on Friday (10.45pm Thursday GMT), the Syrian defence ministry said.

■ NATO’s Israel and Al Qaeda Bomb of Aleppo Murdering Syrians (Syria News)
■ Martyrdom and injury of a number of civilians and military personnel in an Israeli airstrike on Aleppo province

Laurent Guyénot | “It’s time for Jews to be feared!” declared Rabbi Shmuley recently. Jews having failed to overcome anti-Semitism by trying to be loved, respected or admired, must now make themselves feared. This is the new watchword. | The problem is, if Jews want to be feared, then they must also accept being hated. “Fear of the Jews” can be translated, literally, as “Judeophobia” (from the Greek phobos, to fear). To be feared, you must have the power to harm, and you must prove it. So if Jews want to be feared in order to fight anti-Semitism, then anti-Semitism has a bright future ahead.

Footage reveals how Israeli forces execute two civilians waving white flags pic.twitter.com/TmncMvBvau

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) March 27, 2024

■ Footage shows Israel killing two Palestinians, then burying them (MEE)
■ Footage shows Israeli forces shooting dead two unarmed Palestinians (PressTV)
■ Israeli army kills more than 200 Palestinians at Gaza hospital (Anadolu)

Nader Durgham | Much of the news from the war on Gaza has come from local journalists, and their reporting has come at a historically high cost. | “The most difficult day to cover: bombardment, destruction, massacres, and arrests after long months of siege and starvation,” wrote Al Jazeera correspondent Anas Al-Sharif on X, as he was covering Israel’s latest raid on Al-Shifa Hospital and its surroundings in Gaza City on March 18. His colleague Ismail Al-Ghoul was abducted from the hospital along with other journalists by Israeli forces. He was reportedly stripped off his clothes and severely beaten before being released 12 hours later. The army “interrogated all the journalists present at the scene,” according to Al-Sharif, who had to then report on the abduction of another one of his colleagues, Mahmoud Aliwa. ● This was yet another episode of Israel’s devastating war on Gaza which has killed over 31,000 Palestinians and injured over 74,000 since October 7. The death rate along with the massive scale of destruction has led to accusations of genocide against Israel, including one at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Speaking on March 27, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova cast the ISIS claim into serious doubt. 💬 "In order to ward off suspicions from the collective West, they urgently needed to come up with something, so they resorted to ISIS (Daesh), pulled an ace out of their sleeve, and literally a few hours after the terrorist attack, the Anglo-Saxon media began disseminating precisely these versions," she stressed.

The chief of Russian Internal Intelligence (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov, has also hinted that alongside Ukraine, the United States and Britain could have been behind the terrorist attack.

Russian prisoners of war have been tortured in Ukraine between December 2023 and February 2024, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said. | The employees of the OHCHR visited 44 Russian prisoners of war in Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Lvov, Nikolayev, Sumy, Vinnitsa and Zaporozhye regions of Ukraine from December 2023 to February 2024. Ukrainian authorities do not sufficiently prosecute those responsible for torture, violence against civilians and prisoners of war, the OHCHR said.

■ REPORT ON THE HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION IN UKRAINE (.pdf)(OHCHR)

■ APPLICATION OF THE CONVENTION ON THE PREVENTION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE IN THE GAZA STRIP (ORDER OF 26 JANUARY 2024) (.pdf) + APPLICATION INSTITUTING PROCEEDINGS (.pdf)
■ THE EXPRESSION OF HATRED FOR GENTILES (Richard Edmondson/Nahida Izzat) (10/04/14)

Israel's war on besieged Palestinians of Gaza — now in its 173rd day — has killed at least 32,490 people and wounded 74,889 as countries at UN rally behind expert who accused Israel of genocide.

1044 GMT –– At least 32,490 Palestinians have been killed and 74,889 injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since October 7, 2023, the Gaza's Health Ministry said in a statement. There have been 76 Palestinians killed and 102 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry statement added.

1004 GMT –– Hezbollah launches rockets into Israel in retaliation –– Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement fired a barrage of rockets into northern Israel killing a civilian, after Israel carried out a deadly strike in south Lebanon. Hezbollah has exchanged near-daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army since Hamas fighters launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Israeli rescue teams searching a building that had been hit in the border town of Kiryat Shmona "found a 25 year old who was unconscious, with no pulse and not breathing," and pronounced him dead at the scene, the Magen David Adom emergency service said.

0950 GMT –– Russia sends over 29 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Gaza –– Russia said it sent over 29 tonnes of humanitarian aid for besieged Gaza, where more than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 74,000 injured since October 7 last year. A statement by Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry said on Telegram that a special flight it dispatched earlier in the day has delivered the 20th batch of humanitarian aid to representatives of the Egyptian Red Crescent in the city of El Arish, who will then redirect the aid to Gaza residents. The ministry said earlier that the humanitarian aid consists of cereals, flour, sugar and other long-term storage products, as well as personal hygiene products, most of which were collected at the initiative of authorities from the Russian Republic of Karachay-Cherkessia.

American plans would violate international law, Moscow has said | Moscow does not recognize Washington’s attempt to illegally claim over a million square kilometers of maritime territory, including in the Arctic and the Bering Sea, the Russian Foreign Ministry has said. ● Russian representatives informed the Council of the International Seabed Authority of this on Monday. The council is currently meeting in Kingston, Jamaica and operates under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). ● The US is “unilaterally trying to reduce the area of ​​the seabed under the Authority, and hence the entire international community,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. ● The US Department of State announced its “extended continental shelf” project in December 2023, claiming jurisdiction of approximately one million square kilometers beyond its territorial waters. The UNCLOS allows maritime claims of up to 200 nautical miles (370 km) from the shore in the world’s oceans.

■ "The very fact that within the first 24 hours [after the attack], even before the fire was put out, the Americans started screaming that it wasn't Ukraine, I think, is a piece of incriminating evidence. I can't classify it otherwise; it is evidence in and of itself," the diplomat said on air during a Sputnik radio broadcast.
■ "The second fact to note concerns the clamor by the US that this assuredly was the work of ISIS (former name of IS - TASS)," the spokeswoman pointed out. "Of course, the speed with which they were able to [come to such forthright conclusions] is astonishing. It took them only a few hours to get to a microphone, turn on the lights, summon the press and draw a conclusion about who is to blame for this horribly bloody terrorist attack," Zakharova said.
■ "I think they’ve boxed themselves into a corner, because as soon as they started screaming that it was ISIS, all those people who work in international relations, who are political scientists and experts, recalled and reminded everyone else what ISIS really is," the diplomat said. "You are behind all those ISIS-type structures, you - the United States, Great Britain - yourselves brought them into being," she concluded.

■ Moscow slams ‘mother of all fakes’ (RT.com)
■ Russian lawmakers discuss lifting moratorium on death penalty after concert hall attack (Anadolu)
■ The American explanation for the Moscow terror attack doesn’t add up (Dmitry Trenin)

Hezbollah says it strongly condemns the heinous crime and vows that this aggression shall not go unanswered. | Al Mayadeen's correspondent in southern Lebanon reported early Wednesday that seven paramedics had been killed so far in the Israeli airstrike that targeted the Islamic Medical Association center in the town of Hebbariyeh confirming ongoing search and rescue operations. ● The Islamic Resistance in Lebanon - Hezbollah said it strongly condemns the heinous crime, vowing that this aggression shall not go unanswered. ● Commenting on the latest Israeli aggression on Hebbariyeh Lebanese MP Hassan Mrad said it is "a new massacre added to the record of Israeli crimes."

■ Israeli strike on medical center kills seven first-aid volunteers in south Lebanon: What we know (L'Orient-Le Jour)

■ APPLICATION OF THE CONVENTION ON THE PREVENTION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE IN THE GAZA STRIP (ORDER OF 26 JANUARY 2024) (.pdf) + APPLICATION INSTITUTING PROCEEDINGS (.pdf)
■ THE EXPRESSION OF HATRED FOR GENTILES (Richard Edmondson/Nahida Izzat) (10/04/14)